In the race for Harahan police chief, the question is: How safe is Harahan? To Tim Walker, the city is relatively secure; the Police Department just needs an administrator who can keep the force effective on a limited budget. To Peter Dale, crime is steadily on the rise, and the city needs a chief who will implement a broad scope of crime-fighting measures.

Those in Walker's camp stress his administrative skills, which they say are the most important factor. In Dale's camp, supporters stress his record as a former police chief and his familiarity with the latest technologies in policing.

Dale was a Harahan City Council member from 1999 to 2002, then police chief to 2010. Walker is a former New Orleans police officer who served on the Harahan council 1986 to 1990 and was elected again in 1999 and 2006.

In the April 5 primary, they eliminated Al Majeau and Darlene Schwartz. Ahead of Saturday's runoff voting, neither also-ran has endorsed a candidate.

But Jefferson Parish Councilman Paul Johnston and Carlos Ferrara, both former mayors and City Council members, have been on the Walker campaign trail. "You don't have to be a policeman to be a chief. You have to be a good administrator," Johnston said. "We need a good administrator and a good officer. He's a businessman. That's what the city needs now more than anything."

City Councilman Eric Chatelain is backing Dale. "I think we need an experienced police chief who has a proven record. When he was police chief, the crime wasn't up to where it is today," Chatelain said. "Peter Dale is the best man for the job."

Dale and Walker are seeking votes in the old-fashioned way: posting signs and knocking door to door through the city of 4,000 homes.

On the trail, Dale stressed his experience preserving Harahan's safety. He described crime as on the rise, citing a recent burglary on Elaine Avenue.

"I'm just stressing that crime is in here, all the projects I put in here are gone," he said. Speaking to a voter on Oakland Street, he said, "When I was chief, it was the No. 1 safest city in Louisiana. They did away with all my crime prevention programs," he said of his successor, Mac Dickinson, who resigned Oct. 4 2013. "And crime is coming back in Harahan."

"I noticed," said one voter. Replying to the same statement, another voter replied: "Now you're scaring me."

Maybe that's the point. Dale urges voters to turn back the clock, to when he was chief. "We'll have Harahan back to new," he says. "Back to Mayberry. It's just a matter of plugging those programs in again."

To Walker, Harahan is already back to new. On a recent afternoon, he described Harahan as "a little country town. I refer to it as Mayberry." Resident Christine Butler proved that point, inviting Walker in to her home to talk politics, so she could still mind the fajitas on the stove.

"This nice little town," she told him. "We need you to run it."

Turning back the clock, as Dale urges voters to do, is just what some Walker supporters said they did not want. "We need new blood," said one resident, on Anthony Street. Another said, "We need someone with new input."

When a voter told Walker he was leaning toward Dale, having seen how the former chief preserved Harahan through Hurricane Katrina, Walker responded. "I think we can do a lot better than we have been doing."

The No. 1 change that Walker promises is the same change that Dale has said he hopes to carry out: improving the relationship between the Police Department and residents. "It sounds a little simple and a little corny," Walker said. "You have a community that wants to get involved. You need to involve them. I think you'll see a different involvement with community policing, a stronger involvement."

Dale questioned assertions from Walker supporters that he will not be as fiscally responsible as Walker. He said his record proved that he ran the department on budget. "We were the first administrators of the department to come in on budget in 21 years," he said.

In addition to running the Police Department, Dale cites his business experience. He said he has run his own private investigative firm since 1991.

Still, he questioned whether a candidate's ability to administer a department is enough to be able to keep the city safe. "You're going to administer, but what are you going to administer?" he said. "You also have to make policy and technical decisions. Should you let the police do what they want?"

He said court cases decide regularly what new tactics the police may and may not pursue, and someone not aware of those changes would not be the best chief. "Police work changes every day," he said.

Good administrative skills, Dale said, "can make him a good budget officer - not a good chief."

Walker described himself as far more than a budget officer; rather, he said he is a "realist" who has a record of getting projects done. He described large projects he oversaw in other capacities - including the paving of the Mississippi River levee bike path and Harahan's garbage recycling program - which involved red tape and tight budgets.

On Friday evening, when Walker trudged out of his vehicle to take on a door-knocking campaign on a row of low, ranch-style houses, he came across as a realist. "By now, if someone's voting, they probably mostly know the candidates," he said, carrying with him a spreadsheet he uses to tick off each house where he speaks to residents. Still, he said it was good to get to know the constituents he would serve and what they see as the issues. Besides, "I've lost about 12 or 15 pounds, walking."

A resident, walking outside her home, stopped Walker. "I'm voting for you," she said. He told her he was glad for it. Then, quietly, almost disappointed, he said, "That was too easy."